This is a chilling, powerful piece.
In the fascinating play text/programme, Paul Hertzberg explains that he experienced the terrible Angolan War of the late 1980s as a South African conscript and that he has, over the years, written several pieces about it; not least stories he has been told about other people’s shocking experiences.
Hertzberg wrote the central story of The Moth as a 10-minute lockdown monologue. Enthused by the success & stir caused by that piece, plus Hertzberg’s desire to expand the work and include some other dramatic ideas he had around the story, he came up with The Moth in its current form.
The play runs for some 100 minutes or so, plus interval.
Here is a link to the Finborough resource for this play/production.
Arguably, the play is a tad too long. Some of the themes repeat. But then, to be fair, Herzberg is using the dramatic device of the central characters’ paths crossing over the decades to illustrate the notion that traumatic happenings don’t just go away – they infuse and inform the lives of those caught up in them.
Some elements of the play are designed to tell us about the Angolan war, on the basis that we probably don’t know very much about it. But then, as the South African intervention in the late 1980s was a “secret war”, we’re not supposed to know much about it unless we are told. The story does need that context to make sense as a dramatic representation of the kinds of horrific things that really did happen.
In some ways it reminded me of “We Are Proud To…”, which we saw at The Bush over 10 years ago, and not just because it was about little-known South West African tragedies:
Not just the horrors of war – also horrific are the tales of the Afrikaner soldier’s upbringing; memories of his ultra-violent, failed-Nazi, father.
Differently upsetting were the tales of the freedom-fighter’s son – his upbringing in seemingly-benign Balham, yet his sense of invidious racism and the psychological damage caused by having a permanently absent mother and frequently absent father were some of the best aspects of the drama.
Both Micky Cochrane and Faz Singhateh act their parts very well.
The Moth is not an easy watch. It has split the jury on reviews – click here for those. But we were both very struck by it and it kept us both discussing and debating for the next couple of days – which we always take to be a strong sign.
The Moth is running until 21 November 2026. Here’s the Finborough link again.